


Calling Cards

by fadedmystery



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Nina-centric introspection, post-ITH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 04:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8475835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadedmystery/pseuds/fadedmystery
Summary: The breakup was his idea. So it makes no sense that he’s calling her the next day, asking her how her exam went.





	

They break up two months into the fall semester. This isn’t surprising in itself—after all, it _is_ long distance. What is surprising is that the night after the breakup, he still calls her to ask how her exam went, just like every time he knows she may need a sounding board.

“You don’t have to do this anymore, Benny,” Nina reminds him.

“I know.” His reply is easy, casual. She doesn’t buy it one bit. “But I won’t stop till you tell me to.”

(The break-up had been his idea. This is not making any sense.

She doesn’t tell him that. Instead, she just sighs and tells him about today’s essay question from hell.)

And it’s…weird. All of it. They’d been tiptoeing around increasingly breaking glass since she went back to Stanford, but no one could ever say that they didn’t try. There were phonecalls and text messages and Skype and it never seemed real, never seemed enough, but Nina had been willing to take what she could get. And Benny had been so patient, so understanding. They hadn’t even been fighting. She’d heard that some long distance couples broke up because they failed to make time for each other, but that hadn’t been the case with them. It wasn’t that they couldn’t make time, it just…wasn’t enough.

(The night before, when he’d broken up with her, he told her he was sitting on the fire escape. _“What are we doing, Nina?” “I don’t know.”_ She'd known what was coming before he'd said it. Ever since summer ended she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it was only then she realized how sick the satisfaction of being right feels.)

She’s not sure what the proper post-breakup protocol is, but she’s pretty sure it’s not talking with Benny (she still can’t say ex, it feels so….final) till midnight. It’s not even awkward, really (okay it is, but a lot less awkward than she’d expected). Halfway through, she tells him she wants to yell at him, be angry that he’s still murmuring his reassurances, still believing in her, still telling her she’s doing great even though he literally just broke her heart yesterday. He shouldn’t get to do this, she shouldn’t let him do this. But she’s exhausted from her shift at the cafe, and there’s a book open on her desk pointing to a chapter she needs to read by tomorrow, and she can’t bring herself to say goodbye. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells her for the hundredth time. “I didn’t want….god, this sucks.” He breathes out a huff of frustration. “Just…we need this, I think. Look, I just knew today was gonna be tough for you but…if you don’t want me to—”

“No!” she says, a little too quickly. Her heart is beating so loud, she’s surprised he can’t hear it all the way to New York. “We can….friends. Friends talk, right?”

(She’s not even a little bit ashamed to admit she doesn’t want to let him go, even though she did it without a fight the night before.)

Before Nina goes to sleep, it strikes her that that was too easy. 

So it goes on. They don’t talk nearly as often as when they were dating, but he never fails to call or text on her bad days. She makes sure there’s enough time for them to talk. Benny has this weird way of sometimes being annoying with how confident he is about the things he believes in, but the annoyance always gives way to genuine warmth because it’s so clear how sincere he is. When Benny believes in something, he gives his heart to it all.

(It floors her that he believes in her. Most days she feels like she doesn’t deserve it.)

She tells him as much one day. It had been a good day and she’d called him on the way home after getting the photo he sent (Usnavi very awkwardly trying to give Vanessa flowers, with Vanessa looking at him like he’d suddenly grown a third head). They were laughing. They were good. They weren’t together but they were good and things were good and somehow she ends up telling him she doesn’t deserve him.

She tells him how she was so very wrong when she thought things would be different this time. How most of the time, all the worries from before are still there and in many ways it’s even words because _oh god_ her father sold his business for her and what does she have to show for it? How she’s still afraid to fail but she’s more afraid of disappointing everyone around her again. How no one has told her who she had to be or forced any expectation on her but most of the time the praises feel like expectations in themselves and they’ve piled on and on, high enough to make her choke. How every success makes her realize she’ll have to put in even more work to keep it going, because she doesn’t want to be seen as the fraud she really is. How inconvenient she feels being halfway across the country in a school she can’t afford, when there were universities close by that were just as fine. How triumph makes her terrified and mistakes make her want to crawl into a hole and never come out. How everything never feels enough. How _she_ never feels enough.

Benny doesn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he gives this little exhale. If she strains her ears she can maybe hear sirens and some music, and it’s a little painful how much she suddenly _wants_. “You know what I think we did wrong the first time?” he says. “I think we tried too hard.”

“What?” Nina won’t lie and say she isn’t startled. Last she checked, they were talking about her almost perpetual existential crisis.

“I don’t know, maybe we were so busy making sure we wouldn’t break up that it ended up happening anyway?” She can almost see him shrug. He’s got a point though. They used to talk everyday and it used to take up majority of both their free times and while it wasn’t enough, it was great but maybe it never gave them enough of a chance of really miss each other? Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. They’d clung to each other too much that there hadn’t been much room for either of them to sort their lives out by themselves. Nina doesn’t know if this feeling applies to all couples but maybe it does with them. She doesn’t know; she doesn’t want to think anymore.

“Maybe.” She sighs. “I just…miss home. Miss you.”

She can practically feel him smile. Sometimes it’s hard for her to admit these things, that she misses, that she wants. Fear is easy to talk about, but desire, love? That’s a whole different story. “I’ll always be here for you, you know that right?” The way he says it doesn’t even sound like a question; it sounds like truth. “You’re so strong and so wonderful all on your own, and maybe it’s tough to believe sometimes but you are enough. Like I said, you’re gonna change the world someday, Nina, and you don’t need me at all but I’ll always be here for you. Whatever you need.”

(Later that night, they both decide getting back together isn’t happening anytime soon. There are things they both need to work on by themselves, and anyway, neither of them are going anywhere. What’s a bit more waiting?)

One day, Benny doesn’t call when he usually does. That’s fine. Nina spends the whole day smiling, eyes savoring sight, skin savoring warmth and this, _this is good_. Who needs static and terrible reception when the real thing is finally, finally here?

(She steps into his embrace and it feels like home.)

**Author's Note:**

> This was purely self-indulgent and I'm totally projecting here I am so sorry. But Nina is my spirit animal and her and Benny have a love so pure it is a cinnamon roll all on its own. So I couldn't not write this.


End file.
